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What distro do you use for your servers?

I’ve only ever used desktop Linux and don’t have server admin experience (unless you count hosting Minecraft servers on my personal machine lol). Currently using Artix and Void for my desktop computers as I’ve grown fond of runit.

I’m going to get a VPS for some personal projects and am at the point of deciding what distro I want to use. While I imagine that systemd is generally the best for servers due to the far more widespread support (therefore it’s better for the stability needs of a server), I have a somewhat high threat model compared to most people so I was wondering if maybe I should use something like runit instead which is much smaller and less vulnerable. Security needs are also the reason why I’m leaning away from using something like Debian, because how outdated the packages are would likely leave me open to vulnerabilities. Correct me if I’m misunderstanding any of that though.

Other than that I’m not sure what considerations there are to make for my server distro. Maybe a more mainstream distro would be more likely to have the software in its repos that I need to host my various projects. On the other hand, I don’t have any experience with, say, Fedora, and it’d probably be a lot easier for me to stick to something I know.

In terms of what I want to do with the VPS, it’ll be more general-purpose and hosting a few different projects. Currently thinking of hosting a Matrix instance, a Mastodon instance, a NextCloud instance, an SMTP server, and a light website, but I’m sure I’ll want to stick more miscellaneous stuff on there too.

So what distro do you use for your server hosting? What things should I consider when picking a distro?

Deckweiss ,

I have one server running arch and 3 running debian.

So far they are equally stable after running for about half a year.

Autoupdates are turned on on all of them. Which I am aware is against the arch wiki recommendations, but the server is not critical, easy to migrate and has nightly offsite backups anyway.

itslilith ,
@itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

NixOS for my homelab that I like to tinker with, Debian as Docker host for the server people actually rely on

TheBigBrother ,

Debian

ouch ,

This is the way.

Add unattended-upgrades, and never worry about security updates.

Codilingus ,

Unraid is amazing for getting into servers. It’s just the right amount of WebUI and minimalism. Very safe and comfortable defaults, and the ability to start tweaking and adding more.

Sunny ,

Had to scroll far to find this hehe, but count me in - Unraid for the win! Great OS and fantastic community 🧡

avidamoeba ,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

Debian but mostly Ubuntu LTS with the free Ubuntu Pro that gives 10-year support. If I get hit by a bus, chances are the self-hosted systems I’ve setup would continue to work for years till my family can get someone to support or migrate the data. 😅

data1701d ,
@data1701d@startrek.website avatar

Debian backports security updates to most software, including popular server software. Stable also always uses an LTS kernel, which stays supported upstream. So long as you’re using latest Debian Stable (Bookworm as of this writing), run apt update often (in fact, ‘’’unattended-upgrades’’’ is probably not the worst idea in this case) and do common sense security practices like a firewall and (brain is not working), you should be good.

In brief, it’s totally fine to use Debian and in fact one of the best options in my opinion.

traches , (edited )

It’s not conventional wisdom, but I’m happiest with arch.

  • I’m familiar with it
  • can install basically any package without difficulty
  • also love that I never have a gigantic version upgrade to deal with. sure there might be some breaking change out of nowhere, but it’ll show up in my rss feeds and it hits all my computers at the same time so it’s not hard to deal with.
  • Arch never really surprises me because there’s nothing installed that didn’t choose to put there.
  • arch wiki

Tempted by nixos but I CBA to learn it.

harsh3466 ,

Ubuntu LTS. Currently on 22.04.

2xsaiko ,
@2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I run NixOS. It (or something like it, with a central declarative configuration for basically everything on the system) is imo the ideal server distro.

gomp ,

I think I can sense your love/hate relationship with nixos from here :) you are not alone

MoogleMaestro ,

I’m currently using debian with Docker.

If I were to do it again, though, I’d probably just use either fedora or the server equivalent to silverblue (I can’t remember the name). I am so heavy on docker use at this point that I wouldn’t mind going full immutable.

bl_r ,

I have tons of experience with enterprise linux, so I tend to use Rocky linux. It’s similar to my Fedora daily driver, which is nice, and very close to the RHEL and Centos systems I used to own.

You are slightly mistaken with your assumption that debian is insecure because of the old packages. Old packages are fine, and not inherently insecure because of its age. I only become concerned about the security implications of a package if it is dual use/LOLBin, known to be vulnerable, or has been out of support for some time. The older packages Debian uses, at least things related to infrastructure and hosting, are the patched LTS release of a project.

My big concerns for picking a distro for hosting services would be reliability, level of support, and familiarity.

A more reliable distro is less likely to crash or break itself. Enterprise linux and Debian come to mind with this regard.

A distro that is well supported will mean quick access to security patches, updates, and more stable updates. It will have good, accurate documentation, and hopefully some good guides. Enterprise linux, Debian and Ubuntu have excellent support. Enterprise linux distros have incredible documentation, and often are similar enough that documentation for a different branch will work fine. Heck, I usually use rhel docs when troubleshooting my fedora install since it is close enough to get me to a point where the application docs will guide me through.

Familiarity is self explanatory. But it is important because you are more likely to accidentally compromise security in an unfamiliar environment, and it’s the driving force behind me sticking with enterprise linux over Nixos or a hardened OpenBSD.

As a fair word of warning, enterprise linux will be pretty different compared to any desktop distro, even fedora. It takes quite a bit of learning, to get comfortable (especially with SELinux), but once you do, things will go smoothly. you can also use a pirated rhel certification guide to learn enterprise linux

If anything, you can simply mess around in a local VM and try installing the tools and services needed before taking it to the cloud.

ginza ,

My server is running headless Debian. I run what I can in a Docker container. My experience has been rock solid.

From what I understand Debian isn’t less secure due to the late updates. If anything it’s the opposite.

robinj1995 ,

CentOS Stream 8. Which I regret. Because they ended support without upgrade path.

gomp ,

I thought you could still go Centos Stream 9?

Anyway, I’m pretty sure almalinux-deploy allows migration from Centos Stream 8… it’s your second chance to be done with fickle management decisions from RedHat/IBM: don’t miss it this time :)

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